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Friday, April 11, 2014

Master closet reveal!

Well I’m SO excited to share this with you, finally! As you know, I’ve been working on our master closet for a couple months now. The first step was purging – and while I was working on that I was contacted by the folks at Sherwin-Williams about their National Painting Week campaign. I was totally up for it, but then they told me my color was purple.

Purple wasn’t going to happen in this house – I’m the only girl here (if you don’t count one of the cats). So I was about to decline, but then I thought about it a bit more…and thought maybe I could paint our closet purple. Hmmm...

I initially think of a little girl’s room when I think of that color (my Dad painted my walls a lovely lilac when I was a kid), but the more I thought about it the more I realized it could go quite sophisticated.
So I was on a mission to make purple work. My biggest criteria when picking out the color was that it didn’t scream GIRL. This is my husband’s closet too. So I tried to go with a gray purple instead of a pinky purple, if that makes any sense.

I’m not sure if I’ve shown you this before photo yet – let me assure you that this was after I had cleaned up. Imagine this, but ten times worse, and oh yeah…you couldn’t see the floor:
The first step was to tear out the baseboards and install the cabinets for the new storage system. I shared that update with you here. Yes, I used kitchen cabinets for this project. Just call me the crazy cabinet lady – all I can do is agree with you.

I went with those for a few reasons – they were cheap (at least cheaper than a regular closet system), they were already built (so no assembly required) and they were deep – 24 inches to be exact. But the biggest reason was that they had drawers and doors I could close.

I decided on my colors and the plan started to come together:
I went with Spatial White on the cabinets and Exclusive Plum on the walls. The plum color is actually the Sherwin-Williams color of the year – I’m on trend and didn’t even know it. :)

I went with the ProClassic paint for the cabinets because I’ve had such good luck with it:
I did a semi-gloss finish and it covered great as always. One coat of primer and two coats of Spatial White later and they were done:
The finish is great – I didn’t even use a brush to paint the cabinet doors this time. Just rolled it into the crevices and the paint leveled out wonderfully. I added simple $2 handles to each cabinet when it was dry.

So for the walls I wanted to go with something that would be very forgiving. Over the years I’ve moved the wire shelves all over the place in there so there were a TON of holes. We stopped counting at 100, seriously. And they were the big honkin’ ones from the closet system anchors too.

The Cashmere paint is supposed to cover well and hide imperfections on the wall:
My husband was out of town (funny how that always happens) so my sister came over and we knocked the closet out in a few hours:
That’s me in my post-Zumba glory, don’t be jealous.

I’ve done this enough now that I’m pretty good at cutting in on the ceiling and around trim, but cutting in horizontally on the baseboards is still tricky. (I have to contort myself just so.) So it was helpful that I removed the base:
After a few more small projects that I’ll go over soon, the room finally came together. I absolutely, positively LOVE it:
I can't even believe it’s the same room. I cannot express to you how much better it functions.

My mess up when measuring for the cabinets actually worked out quite well. Now that middle section is a great little vanity area:
I raised that middle cabinet off the ground to match the other ones so I ended up with a stool height countertop. That cabinet holds off season shoes and my heels that I rarely wear – so I don’t mind that I’ll have to move the chair to get to them since it will be so infrequent.

How fun is this?:
The plum color is SO beautiful! I'm so excited I got purple now. :) It definitely changes in different light. The vanity area wall looks a little lighter than the other walls.

Here’s one side of the closet ready for paint – see all the holes?:
Let me tell you how fun THAT was, filling all of those!

Here it is again with the paint AND the new light:
The new light fixture makes a HUGE difference in here. It's hard to tell in the before pic, but the old fixture just lit up three areas in the room, not the whole room overall.

It’s actually so bright I had to put it on a dimmer:
On dark winter mornings it will be nice to have soft light in here. I have another plan for even more light in here, stay tuned for that. :)

I’m so thrilled with this space but the to do list is not done. I still need to build the shelves on each side above the drawers --they’ll give us even more storage. I’m making the tall units even more storage-friendly with some more shelves and pull out drawers. And I hope to replace the wire shelving for our clothes someday too.

But for now, we’re enjoying a space that functions a MILLION times better than it used to, and it’s pretty. When this room was a dysfunctional mess I used to dread walking into it every morning. It’s amazing what it does for your day when the closet it organized and stays that way:
You can see the necklace organizer that hangs on the wall to the right here. I made that after I took these pics. :)

My husband has thanked me no less than ten times for working on this room -- it really has made a big difference for us. Here's another reminder of the before:
And the same space afterwards, with a some plum paint and storage:
It has truly changed our days, I can’t believe the difference some organization makes! I SO love how it turned out. Kitchen cabinets -- I heart you. I’ll share more details and additional progress soon!

64 comments:

Sarah, this looks fantastic! It's truly amazing how much of a difference it makes to have an organized master closet, isn't it? It feels like losing 10 pounds, and is such a relief (if that makes any sense). Well done!

This looks fantatstic. I have to admit when you talked about using the kitchen cabinets, I was not seeing your vision. But the end result is awesome. And I love Sherwin Williams paint, definitely worth the extra money in my opinion.

That is a huge closet! Looks beautiful!When you describe your choice of purple I thought of that commercial where the lady says "I'm looking for a purple (voice goes up) that's more like a purple (voice goes down), you know what I mean?"

It looks beautiful, I love the moody purple color! What a great place to get ready in. It's funny how treating a closet like a room can make such a difference on how you feel when you walk into it every single day!

The difference between the before and after is crazy ridiculous (in a good way)! What a beautiful closet! Glad your husband likes it. Isn't it funny how when husbands are at work or traveling that a finished project just happens to magically appear. ;)

Please tell me you did a happy dance in there, when you were all done. lol :D

Your closet looks amazing! I'm not a huge fan of purple, but I love the color you chose, it really looks stunning. I read your blog all of the time, it is very inspiring and I've tackled many DIY projects in my house as a result - thank you for sharing all of your ideas & projects!

Incredible job!!! And I'm so glad that you got purple, too! I would've thought the same thing that you did, but the dusty almost gray-ish tone of this is gorgeous. (Love what anonymous said about that commercial, LOL. Forgot about that! Best paint commercial EVER.)

Oh Sarah ... I absolutely love that closet!!! The color shade looks equally feminine and masculine to me, great choice! I saw some cabinets on the road side the other day and SO wanted to head back and get them all (there were 6 or 7 there) ... couldn't stop at the time and they are gone (not surprised) I have a rather large unfinished room in our massive basement that is crying for storage like this. A girl can dream, thanks for the SO MANY encouraging projects ;-)

Elegant, organized, and so sooooothing! Love it! I would put a recliner in there and never come out! LOL! Just one thing though? Where did you hang your clothes?? I wouldn't want to ruin the closet with putting clothes in it!! LOL!

This looks amazing. I would love mine to look like this. I love the purple paint. Did you get the cabinets at a big box store, please? Nothing looks better and makes your life easier than great organization. You rock girl !!!! You impress the heck out of me with all your talent. I think you could build a house with no problem at all. Can't wait to see it completely finished.

It looks awesome! I know I keep telling you this, but we ARE sisters connected by some weird (but good) energy, since I keep seeing us work on similar projects at about the same time. I just painted my main hallway this week and used Sherwin Williams Manor House, which is a very close but slightly darker cousin to your Exclusive Plum. I'll show it on my 4/22 post. I hope you are loving your cabinets and your new baseboard. Hope to see you again at Haven this year.

Sarah! You have done a fantastic job. This is what we called creativity. I loved the way you changed that messy room into beautifully designed and decorated room. The fixtures used are of great style. Thank you for sharing some really awesome creativity of yours.